Wi-fi Warrior Rank v3: The First Online Ultimate Ranking

Throughout 2018, the online community set out to create a definitive ranking for its very best Smash 4 players. We did so with the advent of the Wi-fi Warrior Rank, a biannual top 50 ranking that makes up for its imperfections by shoehorning puns in every single player profile. Now Smash 4 is all but gone, and the community has moved on in full to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. And while the game has changed, our dedication to building something great for our community is the same. From the beginning of 2019 to the end of June, we're bringing you Ultimate's first ever online ranking: the Wi-fi Warrior Rank v3!

More changes than ever before have been made for the WWRv3, and we're happy to outline them all for you right here. In addition, make sure to join the Wi-fi Warrior Centraldiscord for regular updates on the WWRv3. Without further ado, let's step right into it!

Eligible Tournaments

In previous seasons, the WWR was made up of every tournament from a small number of central series, including every single weekly event. As long as it reached C-tier, its data was featured on the rankings. However, this season, we're doing something completely different: Weeklies will no longer count for the WWR.

This change mirrors a long-standing feature of the Panda Global Rankings, and our reasons for making the change are very similar. The main reason is that this will allow weeklies to be consequence-free. In previous seasons, the inclusion of weeklies meant that each one had significant implications for the rankings - certain weeklies even reached A-tier, particularly at our larger series. With this change, players can now use weeklies to practice secondaries that aren't quite tournament level yet, or to sandbag just for fun. No consequences means no stress, except at the largest events!

Major Tournaments

The above change means that the only tournaments that count will be "majors". A major is any tournament that occurs on a monthly basis at most; and if it's partnered with a weekly series, it's branded somewhat separately.

We already experimented with a list of majors last season, and the criteria is largely the same. As for our central series, events like Eclipse's Editions, Smashing Legends' Monthlies, and various series' Sagas will all count as Majors. In fact, each of our central series (Eclipse, Smashing Legends, Smash Station, TVSeries, and Take the L Tuesdays) will host at least four majors throughout this six-month season.

All major tournaments will be advertised in the Wi-fi Warrior Central discord, so once again, make sure to join that discord so you don't miss any of the action!

Any Tournament Can Be WWR-Eligible

Since Ultimate's big thing is that "everyone is here," we thought the WWRv3 should be the same way! For the first time, any online tournament can be WWR-eligible - not just those inside our central series. The only requirements are that it counts as a major, it's not region-locked, and it's not sub-only.

All majors from our central series are automatically included on the TTS. If an outside tournament comes from a well-known organizer that the WWR team sees as highly reputable, their major tournaments will also be included automatically.

Can my tournament be on the WWR?

Yes it can! As long as it follows the above requirements, anyone's tournament can be included on the WWR. However, it will not happen automatically. If you'd like your tournament to count for the WWR, here's what you'll need to do.

Let us know - The first step to getting your tournament included is to request it from one of the WWR team members. You can find us in the WWC discord; we're the red ones at the top. Don't be afraid, we don't bite :)

Give advance notice - We can't add a tournament to the WWR that's already happened. In order to count for the WWR, you need to contact us at least two weeks before the start date.

Finally, your tournament will be officially added and advertised, as long as it reaches B-tier at least one week before the start date. There will be more information on tiers below, but you can always ask us and we'll check the current tier for you!

Naifu Wars

There is one thing that both previous WWRs have been missing. Hosted by Nairo and his team, Naifu Wars is one of the biggest Wi-fi series in existence, and is as synonymous with the online scene as anything. Previously, they were not counted on the WWR by virtue of being sub-only. However, the regular Naifu Wars weeklies are now open-entry. To properly accomodate this series, we're going to make a special exception: the first Naifu Wars of every month will be WWR-eligible, so long as it's still open-entry. We hope to see the Naifu Nation on this upcoming edition of the WWR!

WWRv3 Tournament Tier System

As stated above, for the first time ever, our Tournament Tier System (TTS) will be public. This will allow everyone to see the date of each major, who's hosting it, and perhaps most importantly, what tier the tournament is.

The tier is determined by the amount of points it has on the TTS; the points are determined by either raw entrants or WWR entrants. Raw entrants is simply the number of attendees; WWR entrants is a different metric that will change as the season goes on. Currently, it is determined by the number of WWRv2 players who attend; it will likely stay like this for the first half of the season. At the halfway point, we will adjust the TTS to match the in-progress top 50, allowing us to account for the brand-new meta as well as we can! We're not currently sure how we'll handle publicizing these adjustments, but we'll keep you in the loop and let you know when they're finalized.

Final Thoughts

We're excited to bring you what we hope will be our biggest and best WWR yet! As usual, stay tuned in the Wi-fi Warrior Centraldiscord for all things WWR, including major advertisements, results, and more. We'll see you all this summer for the reveals!